I think we're talking at cross-purposes. I'm talking about the ravages of drug addiction on society. It's not about protecting you, it's about protecting society from you.
The reason drugs cost so much is because they are illegal, not because they cost a lot to produce or distribute. So we make the drug dealers rich, or we put them in prison, and this has a corrupting effect on police, border patrol, and who knows how many other organizations.
Plus we spend a ton of money, lives, and energy fighting something in a obviously losing fight. Isn't it better to educate, and help people with addictions? Or do you support the prison industry ;-)
Ever considered that this has something to do with it being the most accessible and normalised?
If you could pick up crack at your corner store, if it was advertised everywhere, if crack brands sponsored large sporting events and people commonly went for a puff after work, do you really think it won't be the most ravaging drug in the world, and exponentially worse than alcohol?
Did anyone ask for drugs to be legal for kids? or to not be regulated at all?
> We even tried to make it illegal but it wasn't tenable.
Neither is the war on drugs, you have to be blind to not acknowledge its huge failure, both economically and socially.
Besides the wealth of extremely addictive substances (and activities) that are legal (some regulated), there's also at least one illegal drug that you're never going to be (chemically) addicted to: LSD.
The "we're protecting you" logic behind making arbitrary drugs illegal is nonsense. It's even more weakened by the fact that at least a few of the illegal drugs with "no medical purpose" have, in fact, some medicinal use: Marijuana for anti-nauseau, combating eating disorders, and pain relief, and MDMA for PTSD.